


Time Won't Work It Out

by cerasi



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Clothed Sex, First Time, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 17:34:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10746525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerasi/pseuds/cerasi
Summary: Post-canon, Nezumi returns to his apartment, and to Shion.





	Time Won't Work It Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> This is a VERY belated treat for havisham. I've always wanted to write something for these two, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title is from "Ocean of Noise" by Arcade Fire.

When he comes back, Shion is in his apartment.

He stalls at the door and tries to work the feeling back into his legs as he watches Shion chopping potatoes by the sink, oblivious. This is the reason he’s here, probably the _only_ reason. But the sight of Shion working happily, humming along with the radio, almost has him backing out of the door and shutting it before Shion notices him.

With some effort, he doesn’t.

“Shion,” he says, instead.

Shion whirls around with the knife, and Nezumi is afraid he’s going to drop it—and then, just for a second, is afraid that he won’t. But then Shion’s face breaks into a smile, and he wipes the knife on his apron, turns quickly to set it on the counter. “ _Nezumi_ ,” he says, and Nezumi hears the weight of every month that he was away woven into the syllables of his name. He lets Shion take the bag out of his hand, lets him step in close and wrap an arm around his back.

“Welcome back,” Shion murmurs into his ear.

Nezumi exhales, and thinks that maybe this is something he can try.

*

“I thought you’d be back home,” Nezumi says, when they’ve finished eating the meat and potato stew Shion was preparing. “With your mom.”

“She’s here now,” Shion tells him. “Just down the hall. Our home…” He shakes his head. “Well, it wasn’t safe. At least not safe enough for the baby, she thought.”

“Baby?”

“You remember,” Shion says, “the baby we found,” and Nezumi does remember, remembers Shion’s quiet determination, his own insistence to leave it to die.

“It’s alive?”

Shion smiles. “My mom’s raising her. I guess she’s my little sister, now.”

Nezumi’s glad he’s already eaten; his stomach feels twisted.

They sit on the couch after dinner, and he tells Shion about his year, the places he’s been, the things he’s done. Shion listens with interest and doesn’t ask him why it took him so long to return, why he never sent any messages back.

“I’ve been using your bed,” Shion says, when Nezumi comments on how late it’s gotten. “You can have it back, if you want.”

Nezumi shakes his head quickly. “I’ll take the couch.”

Shion doesn’t look at him when he says, “Or I thought… maybe we could share it.”

A shiver goes up Nezumi’s back, and his throat goes tight. It’s an innocent request, he’s sure; they haven’t even kissed tonight, and yet…

Shion is blushing, he realizes. He takes a breath, tries to respond.

“Shion…”

“I just mean,” Shion says, “you know… to sleep.” He swallows visibly and raises his eyes. “I’d like to,” he adds softly, and Nezumi doesn’t know how he can say no.

When they get into bed and turn off the lights, Shion moves close to him and puts a hand on his side, and it feels easy when Nezumi wraps an arm around his shoulders; it feels _right_.

 _I’ll protect you_ , he thinks, testing out the thought in his head. _I want to protect you_.

The words don’t scare him like they used to, but they feel emptier now, too. Shion doesn’t need his protection now. He has a place in this world; he’s leading others. He’s been fine on his own, all this time.

“Thank you,” Shion says quietly. “For coming back.”

Nezumi swallows and touches his hair, tries to figure out how to make sense of his thanks, his apologies, his urge to explain. But before he can, Shion is finding his face in the dark, curling a palm around his cheek. He feels a soft brush against his lips and realizes only as it’s ending that Shion is kissing him.

“Shion—” he says, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. He’s tingling from head to toe.

“A good night kiss,” Shion says, and tucks his head into Nezumi’s shoulder. “For real, this time.”

Nezumi hesitates. Then he kisses the top of Shion’s head and wraps both arms around him, holding him close. “Good night,” he says.

*

He stays, and he tries to make himself useful. Shion goes into the city nearly every day to work on bringing order to their new world, and sometimes Nezumi goes too, helps read paperwork for the new government that’s been established, answers questions for the citizens he wanted to kill. Some days he just goes down the hall to help take care of the baby, Yurika, or helps Shion’s mom with her baking—“Practice for when I open the store again!” she says, and sits him down with a plate full of flaky confections to try.

At night, though, it’s just the two of them, sitting on the couch and reading, talking, asking about each other’s days. Sometimes Shion touches his shoulder, while they talk, rubs his thumb in pensive circles where the fabric joins, but otherwise the only affection they share is in bed, Shion’s goodnight kiss that lingers longer every night, that takes Nezumi’s breath away every time even though he knows it’s coming.

Finally, there’s a night when Shion’s mouth hovers near his after they separate, breathes warm and lingering on his lips, and then one goodnight kiss turns into two, and then three, Shion’s hand slipping down to cradle his jaw as he kisses Nezumi chastely, again and again.

“Shion—” Nezumi whispers. He doesn’t want to pull away, but he does; he turns his face into the pillow and wills his pounding heart to be quiet. He’s hard, he realizes, and he desperately tries to quiet that, too.

“I’m sorry,” Shion says, and Nezumi shakes his head.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just—” He doesn’t know how to continue.

Shion nods and settles onto his pillow, his little finger just barely brushing the side of Nezumi’s hand. “Good night,” he murmurs into the dark.

*

The next night, Shion doesn’t try to kiss him.

“Hey,” Nezumi says, finally, and brushes his lips over Shion’s cheek, his chin. “What about this?”

“I thought maybe you didn’t want to.”

Nezumi kisses Shion’s lips, feels the way his body tenses, the tiny sigh that leaves him as they pull apart. He knows he doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t even come close. He also knows that Shion, for whatever reason, is waiting for him to decide. He closes his eyes. “I want too much,” he confesses, and kisses Shion again.

He’s more forceful, this time, but he barely has to be; Shion melts at his touch, parts his lips at the first touch of his tongue and moans, soft and sweet, as Nezumi licks into his mouth. The kiss was a decision, but it’s raw instinct that has Nezumi pushing him down into the sheets, angling to make the next kiss deeper as Shion’s hands tangle in his hair and his shirt, as Shion makes a small, needy noise at the back of his throat. His head feels hot; his whole body feels hot, and there’s no way Shion can’t tell how hard he is, how much he wants this, how much he wants _more_.

He rips himself away, and the room spins. Shion is lying limp, gasping for breath. “Nezumi,” he whispers.

Nezumi turns over and pulls the covers up to his neck before he can change his mind. “Good night,” he manages to say.

Behind him, he hears Shion take a shuddering breath, and then another. He’s afraid Shion is going to say something—he doesn’t know what, but he thinks that almost anything would make him lose his resolve. But Shion lays still, his breaths growing steady until they grow too faint to hear. Nezumi almost thinks that Shion must be asleep by the time Shion finally whispers back, “Good night.”

*

“You don’t have to hold back for me,” Shion tells him, the next morning over coffee.

“Huh?”

“Last night,” Shion says. He’s blushing, but Nezumi can see that he’s determined to be straightforward; it makes his chest ache with admiration. “You didn’t have to stop, if. You didn’t want to.”

Nezumi swallows. “I wanted to.”

“Oh.” Shion nods. “Well, that’s—that’s fine, then.” Nezumi can hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Shion,” he says, “it’s just… I want…” _to be careful with you_ , he thinks, but it sounds foolish, even in his head.

Shion smiles and shakes his head. “It’s alright,” he says again. “There’s no rush.” He takes Nezumi’s hand and squeezes it, and Nezumi thinks that he might actually understand.

*

He can’t make himself go back to chaste kisses, though, after that. And it doesn’t take long to figure out that he’s being as cruel to Shion as he is to himself, kissing him until he’s gasping for breath and quivering under Nezumi’s hands, and then leaving him to whimper softly at the drag of the sheets over his erection as Nezumi pulls away.

“Shion,” he finally murmurs one night, as Shion fists hands into his shirt, chases his next kiss while keeping his lower body purposefully angled away on the bed. “I want… I want you to have more.” He leans down to lick at Shion’s neck, and Shion gasps, lets his head loll to the side.

“Huh?” he asks hazily.

“I want you to come.”

“Oh,” Shion says, and then—“ _Oh,_ ” he groans, as Nezumi bites down on his neck and wraps a hand around his clothed cock in the same moment.

“Is that okay?”

Shion moans wantonly in reply, bucks up against his hand and buries his face against Nezumi’s temple. “Please,” he begs softly. “Please, Nezumi, please—just—”

He was going to use his hand, but his willpower slips a notch, and he lifts Shion’s leg instead, hooks it over his shoulder and sighs in relief as they rub together. Shion is taut and shaking under him, and Nezumi doesn’t think he’ll last long enough for them both to finish, but when Shion comes a half-dozen thrusts later, his breathy wail and the vice of his legs around Nezumi’s back have Nezumi groaning in shock as he hits his climax with a final thrust against Shion’s quivering thigh.

Shion whimpers and clutches at his back. “Oh,” he says, softly, again. He sounds lost. “Oh.”

Nezumi struggles to clear his head. “Are… are you…?”

“I’m…” Shion exhales, warm and damp on Nezumi’s neck. Then he draws in a breath that turns into a laugh as his limbs finally loosen. “Wow.”

Nezumi feels a familiar bubble of guilt rise up inside of him, but it’s tempered by something else, some strange feeling of lightness that’s at once impossible to grasp and steadfast in his chest. It’s Shion’s smile, he thinks, the purity of it. If he’s made Shion smile like that, then he must have done some small thing right.

He helps untangle them from each other and nudges Shion onto his side, presses up against his back and smooths sweat-dampened hair from his forehead. His pants are in an unmentionable state, and Shion’s must be, too, but it feels wrong to do anything but stay close.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words rumbling low and unplanned from his chest. Shion makes a small, alarmed noise, but Nezumi presses on before he can interrupt. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I never… never wrote to you, or told you I was coming back.”

Shion doesn’t respond at first. Then he moves his hand down to where Nezumi’s arm is encircling his waist, and he laces their fingers together. “I knew you were coming back.” His voice is steady, but it wavers just a little when he adds, “As long as you were alive.”

Nezumi swallows against the bitter guilt rising in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says again, hoarsely. “I just wanted…” But there’s no excuse that’s good enough, and it feels worse to fall just short. He goes quiet. “I was ashamed,” he finally says. “And I was too selfish to keep that from hurting you.”

Shion’s thumb rubs softly over his knuckles. “I know.”

“You don’t have to forgive me for that.”

Shion keeps rubbing his hand, but he doesn’t say anything. Finally he moves, shuffling around until they’re face to face on the bed. When they’re situated with a hand’s width between them, Shion looks up at him. “You didn’t promise me anything different.”

“...No,” Nezumi says, “but—”

Shion kisses him. For a second he thinks it’s a distraction, but there’s no urgency to it. It’s deliberate, measured. When Shion pulls away, his eyes are steady. “Will you?” he asks.

It takes a second for the words to make sense, but when they do, Nezumi feels like he can't draw a breath.

“Is that what you want?” he asks, when he’s able to.

Shion doesn’t answer for a second. Then he tilts his head. “Is there somewhere else you’d go?”

“No,” Nezumi answers, and then he realizes what he’s said. He didn’t think before speaking, but he didn’t have to; it seemed obvious. Shion is here. Shion is going to be here.

He breathes in, and decides.

“No,” he says again, and the beginning of Shion’s smile is enough to make him feel sure. He smiles back and says, “I’ll stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> _Left in the morning_   
>  _While you were fast asleep_   
>  _Into an ocean of violence_   
>  _A world of empty streets_
> 
> _You've got your reasons_  
>  _And me I've got mine_  
>  _But all the reasons I gave_  
>  _Were just lies to buy myself some time_
> 
> _I'm gonna work it out_  
>  _Cause time won't work it out_  
>  _I'm gonna work it out_  
>  _Cause time won't work it out for you_


End file.
